A 1960 article in the Agricultural History Review noted instances of
Iron Agesquatting.[1] Squatting was criminalised in 1865 by the
Trespass Act.[2] The number of cases which come to court are small: between 2007 and 2011, the average number of prosecutions was 13; between 2005 and 2010, there were 26 convictions.[2][3]: 74 Adverse possession does not exist in
Scots law, but a similar concept is positive prescription, which only applies to land. In order for positive prescription to be successful the applicant must firstly hold a deed in either the
Register of Sasines or a title in the
Land Registry, and secondly must have had possession of the land for a time of ten years, meeting various conditions.[4] According to author and politician
Andy Wightman, Scotland has seen four waves of squatting in which powerful interests stole land from the Scottish people. He names these as
feudalism, the
reformation, the division of the
commonties and the foundation of the
royal burghs.[5]
Following the
Highland Clearances,
land raids occurred across rural Scotland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[6] Irish land reform proponent
Michael Davitt was enthusiastically received when he did speaking tours in 1882 and 1887.[7] The Vatersay Raiders lived in bad conditions on the islands of
Barra and
Mingulay so they decided to occupy land on
Vatersay. The absentee landlord
Emily Gordon Cathcart took them to court and they received two-month prison sentences in 1908. After an uproar they were released and Cathcart paid their travel home. Eventually the state purchased the island and it was divided up into
crofts by the
Congested Districts Board.[8][9] The
Seven Men of Knoydart carried out a land raid as late as 1948 as part of a publicity campaign for land reform on the
Knoydart peninsula.[10]The Colony was a squatted commontie in the
Bennachie hills for 100 years starting in the 1930s.[11] In 1946, a squatters movement rose up similar to the one in
England and Wales in places such as
Edinburgh,
Glasgow,
Peterhead and
Wigtown. Derelict army camps were squatted as well the ex German consulate in Glasgow.[12] The 1865 Trespass Act was used to prosecute squatters.[3]: 80
Recent events
Two squat actions were carried out as
road protests. The Pollok Free State unsuccessfully fought plans to extend the
M77 motorway through
Pollok Country Park, whilst a
camp at Bilston contested the construction of a bypass.[13][14] In 2011, the former site of the
Forest Café was briefly occupied by 100 people protesting against the lack of community spaces in Edinburgh.[15]
^Wightman, Andy (2005).
Land Reform and Land Restitution in Post-Feudal Scotland(PDF). Squatters or Settlers: Rethinking Ownership, Occupation and Use in Land Law. Onati, Euskadi: International Institute for the Sociology of Law.
Archived(PDF) from the original on 2019-05-15. Retrieved 2022-06-11.
^Boyd, Graham; Callander, Robin; Wightman, Andy (2004).
"Common Land in Scotland: A Brief Overview"(PDF). Commonweal of Scotland – Working Paper No. 3 (Issue 1). Caledonia Centre for Social Development.
Archived(PDF) from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 15 June 2022.